Demons and Devils (Part Deux)

Continuing yesterday's post on fiends, plots, and fiendish plots.

Mortal cultures have countless names for the lower planes - called Hell, Hades, the Abyss, Sheol, Gehenna, and Tartarus, to list but a few. Some planes are united by an overarching hierarchy; a few are so riddled by interconnecting portals they might as well be coterminous. But most are disparate worlds tumbling in loose philosophical orbit through the Astral Sea, united only by the lethality of their environments and the active malice of their inhabitants. The latter have been divided into two broad categories: demons, which seek to destroy mortal life, and devils, who want mortals to destroy themselves. While both factions count both inhuman geniuses and mindless drudges among their numbers, demonic plots focus more directly on results, while devils specialize in manipulation and subterfuge.

Warlocks from the ancient and decadent Empires of Sin organized the fiends into the following sub-categories by agenda:

Rage demons gotta rage

Wrath:

Demons of wrath are the most common, the bloodthirsty hordes that people imagine will ravage the world when the end times come. From the mightiest balors to the lowliest dretches, wrathful demons are straightforward adversaries bringing agony and terror. Lesser demons go on bloody rampages as soon as they can slip from their summoner's control, while demon lords hatch schemes to destroy whole cities in magical conflagrations or open planar gateways to unleash the fury of endless infernal legions.

Devils of wrath specialize in creating conflict, breaking alliances, and encouraging war without restraint as the most direct and profitable solution to all problems. Hellish mercenaries offer their services to expansionist despots and tyrants in need of "peacekeeping" forces. Devlish masterminds offer strategic advice to fascist regimes and inspire the invention or discovery of lethal new weapons.

Demons of wrath charge forward with such hateful ferocity they tear themselves apart with every attack. The massive blades and bone spurs erupting from their bodies cleave through everyone nearby with each swing, the difference between friend and foe lost in a haze of bloodlust. Devils induce a similar state in others with gaze attacks causing madness, rage, and pain that can only be alleviated by harming allies. The element of wrath is fire, which spreads out of control before burning itself out.

Lower planes ruled by fiends of wrath include blasted fields of shrapnel and carnage, lakes of molten iron, and rolling siege engines the size of nations.

Pazuzu, you ungrateful gargoyle! I put you through college!

Envy:

Demons of envy specialize in possession. Whether out of self-loathing or a simple desire for greater power or skill, mortals can invite demons into their dreams and give up control of their bodies. Most envious demonic schemes involve possessing an influential mortal and establishing a legacy of infernal influence and tainted bloodlines (which are easier to possess in the future).

Devils of envy specialize in Faustian bargains, taking advantage of mortal shortsightedness to trade temporary boons for future deeds with dreadful consequences. Long-term schemes involve shaping cultures and economics to encourage vanity, inequality, and discontent. Information brokers also offer to unearth mortals' darkest secrets for their enemies, again for prices that end up being much dearer than they first seem.

Brutish fiends of envy have attacks that encourage feelings of inadequacy and helplessness by crippling limbs, stealing and copying spells or martial techniques, or sundering critical weapons and implements. Carefully worded curses are favorite tools of the more cerebral. The element of envy is acid, which scars and disfigures the vain and ruins equipment.

Realms of envy are copied after pristine grottoes and heavenly cities, but seething with barely hidden corruption and decay. Beautiful facades sink into virulent swamps, while outside the crumbling city walls a thin carpet of loam conceals mile-deep pits of silverfish and worms.

So Many Monsters: The Other D&D

The other D&D would be Demons & Devils, natch. Dragons might be (in) the name of the game but in my campaigns and I suspect a lot of others fiends are a much more common high level threat. Having giant fire-breathing monsters roaming the countryside or even waiting underground makes you wonder why humanity hasn't been eaten already, but when you're tromping through a literal hellscape an endless parade of horrors seems acceptable, nay, expected. Moreover, the Great Wheel and its big bads - the archdevils and demon lords - are the closest D&D comes to a shared setting (aside from its monsters, as mentioned). A core D&D book won't tell you about the elven kingdom of Figglinflower (it assumes you'll want to make up your own world, which is awesome) but you might hear about Dispater and his iron city on the second layer of Baator. Priorities!

Which is why it's such a shame that so many core demons and devils are some combination of bland, interchangeable, and just plain stupid. Like, if a cultist summons and loses control of a hezrou, what sort of mischief will it get up to compared to, say, a nalfeshnee, or a glabrezu? What sort of plots would you expect from the followers of Kostchtchie? (And for that matter who the hell reads the folktale of Koschei the Deathless and thinks "Hmm, that's a cool name, but what it really needs is more consonants"?) Later editions improve on this a bit - Grazzt, Demogorgon, and Orcus all get chances to shine, along with maybe Lolth and Dispater - but there's still a whole lot of meh.

Like look at this vrock. This is from 3rd Edition, which at least made it look like a demon. This is about as cool as a vrock gets:

What's your deal, vrock? What powers do you have? What sins do you embody? With what foul rites do you want us frail mortals to debase ourselves? Can you even talk? Looking at this picture I have no idea. It's not just the art either; reading the description I still have no idea. It's a demon. It wants chaos and bloodshed, I guess. Ho hum.

Compare the vrock to this similarly bird-headed demon from Warhammer:

Bestial, pitiless, but clearly intelligent. Rife with forbidden knowledge. Evocative of ancient civilizations, something Old Testament. Almost certainly a powerful spellcaster, and not just from reading the blurb. I imagine it whispers Faustian bargains for arcane power with the voice of Tom Waits. (And this isn't even Warhammer's A-game. A comparison like Jubilex vs Nergal, or any number of dumb brute gods vs Khorne, would be even more one-sided. Granted, the vrock is pretty much the bottom of the barrel on the D&D side, but so is a servant of fucking Tzeentch for Warhammer. Lord of "change"? What even is that? Fuck that guy.)

On a semi-related note I'm kind of ambivalent on the whole demon / devil split. The Blood War is pretty sweet in theory: all the planes fight each other over their differences in ways that reflect their similarities. So the Good planes fight with rhetoric and friendly competition, the Lawful planes fight with influence and proxies (and the occasional righteous crusade), the Chaotic planes fight with what are basically glorified cattle raids, and you never really hear about any of that because the battle everyone always talks about is Evil fighting itself with horrific atrocities and genocide. It's a rare example of alignment not being stupid and opens up lots of "enemy of my enemy" possibilities adding complexity to what could be boring, monolithic evil. On the other hand the art and descriptions are so inconsistent on what's a devil and what's a demon (or yugoloth, or demodand, etc) and what they each want that the distinction's pretty arbitrary, and as mentioned there aren't many on either side with much going for them so it's hard to get too jazzed about fitting them into factions.

As much fun as it is cribbing from Dante's Inferno and its various circles I prefer a Hell with no outer borders, one where Asmodeus can declare himself prince of darkness but there's always some upstart demon out past the edge of the map and an endless variety of torture pits and gnashing caverns to harrow.

Kinda like this, but with more stuff in it

It's been years since I ran a Planescape game (unfortunately) but if I did I think I'd center the lower planar factions around the seven deadly sins. Maybe not the most original idea but it gives each group an accessible hook and something to base plots around. I'll be posting a field guide to Hell next time. Expect a lot of images looted from Warhammer, because Warhammer makes this shit look easy. (Except for Tzeentch. What. An. Asshole.)